Michigan!

WARNING - SUPER long blog ahead!

Where to start?  We are officially residents of Michigan!  Unfortunately we are renters, but we are happy to be here and as settled as we can be for now.  I will document a few details of the actual move since I plan to turn these blogs into books someday.

THE MOVE:
Sadly I do not have any pictures of the actual move day.  We were a little busy :)  My mom flew down on Wednesday night to help with the final details and drive up to MI with us.  I closed on the house on Thursday.  The buyers were very nice and easy going and the whole process went smoothly.  There is one side story about a shady contractor we hired to do some work for us, but that is too long of story for today.

The movers arrived on Friday morning at 9:00 am.  They estimated to be finished packing us by 4:00-5:00.  However, our contact person failed to let the driver know that we had stuff going to an apartment and storage, so the whole process took longer.  We had to label everything by where it was going and do two different inventories.  We had reservations to stay in Bowling Green that night, but at 6:00 when they were just starting to take apart the beds we knew that wasn't going to happen.  After calling about 30+ hotels we finally found one in Franklin, TN with one room left.  The movers finished packing at 8:00 pm and we headed out to Franklin.  The moving truck could literally not fit one more item.  They had to put our vacuum up in the cab with the driver because the truck was so full.  (We need a huge garage sale!) The kids did really well all day all things considered- with having no toys or anything to do in our house.  Brodie was really clingy and wouldn't leave me the whole day, he didn't understand what was going on and wouldn't let me out of his sight.  He was so over tired by the time we hit the hotel he would not settle down.  I had to basically pace with him like when he was a baby and I ended up sleeping with both boys in the king bed and my mom was on a roll away.  It was quite the night ;).

We made it to my parents house on Saturday night. Alex was SO SO happy to see Eric after 3 weeks, he just hugged him and would not let go!  Brodie was a little standoffish with Eric at first, like "you left me so whatever" ;).

We stayed with my parents until the movers arrived on Tuesday, April 8.  The unpacking went much faster, but we ran out of room.  We filled the storage unit to the MAX!  So, for a little cash under the table the driver and movers agreed to make one more stop at my brother and sister-in-laws where they so graciously allowed us to use their extra garage to store the rest of our stuff.

We are as settled as we are going to be in an apartment.  We are so happy to be close to family and friends again, but are definitely looking forward to being settled in a house.  Top reasons why apartment life is not fun:
1.  The walls are paper thin.  We have a young family above us and while we are understanding about having children in an apartment, it seriously sounds like there are elephants wrestling above us all the time. No idea what they do all day but they are LOUD!
2.  Our boys are sharing a room.  Alex is doing awesome - Brodie thinks it is an all night party

Pros:
A lot less to clean!!!

The boys love playing in the walk in closet in their room. They pretend that it is their work.  For a couple of days they apparently worked at a beer factory and played with the beer cans for literally hours:

It still feels like we are just visiting sometimes and is surreal that we are here to stay.  The boys and I have been playing tourists a little bit and hitting up the zoo and some museums.  Here are some pictures from the dinosaur exhibit we went to at the GR Public Museum.  These were so life like and they moved and roared.  Alex was really nervous at first, but after I had him touch one and see that they were pretend he really liked it.

 Searching for fossils...

 They also had a lego exhibit there...

 The regular part of the museum had old dolls/doll house...

 An old car...

We are loving being so close to family.  We had a beautiful and busy Easter weekend.  The weather was perfect and we spent all weekend outside. Eric and Alex got a round of golf in.  Alex has already golfed two courses in Michigan.  We spent Saturday night celebrating with Eric's family. The kid's had fun doing an Easter Egg Hunt and playing outside with cousins.  I literally got teary eyed watching Alex with his cousins, because he was SO HAPPY and I am so thrilled that he will be able to grow up close to them.

On Sunday we went to the Easter service at Eric's parent's church then headed out to my parent's house in Grand Haven.  The kids got to do another Easter Egg hunt.

Moving and Soccer

Pretty much the most random post ever- but I wanted to document what has been going on with us lately.

The lack of blogging has been due to our BIG news = we are moving back to MICHIGAN!  We are really excited to be moving close to our families again.  We really want the boys to grow up close to their grandparents and cousins, and we are obviously happy to be near our families again too.  We have been in Alabama for 9 years and will truly miss all the great friends that we have made.  We will also miss the warm weather ;)!

Our families had no idea that we were considering moving back to Michigan or that Eric was interviewing for a job there.  We did not tell them the big news until Eric had accepted the job and we knew that we would be moving.  We told them that Alex had made a picture that he wanted to show them and he held up this picture to break the news:


We had a crazy week from the moment Eric accepted the job to when we put our house on the market. Thankfully the boys were quite entertained by all the boxes!



This is my favorite picture on the blog!  We sold our house the first day it was on the market.  We had two showings the first day and they both put in offers!  We are praying inspection and everything goes smoothly now, but are so relieved to have the house sold and I am so happy to not have to keep it clean for showings anymore!!!


On another note, Alex started playing soccer this year.  He is so so excited and thinks it is so much fun.  I have to constantly remind myself that he is 4 and just sit back and laugh because he truly has no idea what he is doing once he is on the field.  Back to the basics= what goal to kick it in, which players are on your team so you don't try to take the ball from them, etc. ;).  It is quite entertaining for sure!

SNOW DAYS!

Well it happened - snow in Alabama.  This is actually our second big snow since we have lived here.

It started on Tuesday with a "heavy dusting" of snow.  It was just enough to make the roads a mess. Cars packed down the snow and turned the roads into sheer ice.  Eric attempted to go to work and almost 3 hours later returned home, having never made it in.  Roads were closed or blocked by accidents/slide offs.  At one point Eric  had to be pulled off the side by a truck with 4 wheel drive - a long stressful morning for sure.

Alex was so excited to see "all the snow".   Brodie was just happy to be outside and he likes the snow, but gets tired of it a lot quicker than Alex.  Here are our snow adventures on Snow Day 1:

 It wasn't really packing snow, so this small snowman was quite an accomplishment :)

 We do not have a sled - we used a plastic piece from a Frisbee game goal as our sled:

The forecast for Wednesday was cold rain turning to sleet then snow.  The changeover was predicted for late morning.  So, everything was cancelled on Wednesday, including Eric's company (a first!!).  Well, the temperatures stayed at around 36, so we just had cold rain all day.  We ran some errands in the morning and played at Dicks Sporting Goods, where we were the only customers in the store.  We played some Wii and waited for the snow.  The switch over began around 4:30 in the afternoon.  We woke up on Thursday morning to a winter wonderland!   Eric didn't have to go to work until 10:00 so he could play in the snow too.

 Alex ate gallons of snow - every time I looked he had a mouthful of snow...

  A little bigger snowman this time...

 Rolling snowballs...

 Biggest snowball ever....

 4 inches of snow!!!

 Pool frozen over....

 Winter walk -exploring and looking for tracks, etc....

 Making a treat - snow ice cream!  Yummy!

It was a fun snow day, but am glad the sun is out and it is in the 40s and we are warming to the 60's next week. I am over this cold weather!!!  Am pretty sure Alex will cry when he wakes up from nap and sees that the snow is almost gone :(.

Word Meanings and Deep Thoughts by Alex

Alex entertains and amazes me daily with what comes out of his mouth.  It is so interesting to hear what he is pondering in that head of his!

A few recent gems:
*He mixes up the words curious and nervous.  So the other day a package got delivered and he said "Momma I am just so nervous to see what is in that box".

*Alex mixes up lonely and alone.  "Momma can you get Brodie out of my room, I just want to be lonely".

*He and Eric discovered Duck Dynasty on TV the other day and since Alex loves anything camouflage he is always asking Eric if they can watch it, but Alex calls it "Duck Duck Dynasty"

Alex has been asking us a lot of questions about Jesus and Heaven lately.  Here are a few of his deep thoughts:

*"How long do we stay in Heaven before we go back to earth?"
*"How does God fit the whole world in his hands?"
*"How did they get the nails in Jesus' hands on the cross?"
*"Can I play mini golf in Heaven?"
*"How old are you when you go to Heaven?"
*"How does Jesus get me up to Heaven?"
"Will we keep getting older once we are in Heaven?"

And finally here is a random cute video.  Alex is very into "reading" books to Brodie lately.  Love it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUeqgCUudyk